This is actually a response to my own post from October 2008. For one thing, I’d like to edit some inaccuracies and update the post – the online landscape has changed since then. And frankly, I didn’t quite know what I was doing. I was still pretty new to the community and the post was for myself as much as for anyone else.

For one thing, if I were writing the post now I wouldn’t title it Non-Koreans Online. The online community I was referring to is more accurately discribed as “English speaking” rather than “non-Korean”. Kpop Culture Online would have been a better title.

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Soompi remains the hub for much of the Korean pop culture community. In the Soompi forums, threads for kpop artists in the music forum are very popular as are the threads for dramas and movies. They’re often a great entry point to larger fan communities. If you’re interested in an actor, a movie, a musician, here’s where you go.

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While the Soompi forums maintain a fan-filled atmosphere, allkpop is all about the latest celebrity gossip & news. With its exclusive interviews, lightning-fast updates, and fan-forum network, allkpop has emerged as the no. 1 source for kpop news.

♦ K Bites – Blog with quality translations from Korean News, mostly centered around Kpop.
♦ Omona They Didn’t – Livejournal community for everything Kculture, known for their sass.

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Where to Watch

MySoju is still a useful site for watching Kdramas (and Jdramas and Tdramas and…) but after countless times having to halt watching a series because links are broken, I’ve grown frustrated with it.

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Instead I recommend DramaFever, a free and legal video streaming site for Kdramas. There are some downsides – you have to sit through a couple of 15-second commercials per episode and the site is only available to those in the United States or Canada. However, DramaFever’s selection is wide – from the big hits to the hidden gems – and growing every week.

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Other sources of Kdrama:

♦ Dramacrazy.net – Essentially the same as MySoJu through slightly more Jdorama-centered.
♦ aja-aja and WithS2 – These two might have made the list accept for the fact that aja-aja has be shut down. It was a lovely partnership – aja-aja provided the raw videos and WithS2 did the subs. But with one out, the system breaks down (And hamstringing my drama-watching ability!) However aja-aja may reopen in the future so keep an eye on it.

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Sources of other Korean television aren’t so easy to locate. Korean talk shows and variety shows are scattered across YouTube subtitled by various fan subbing teams. Only rarely is a particular show covered by a sub team (ex. RSS for Family Outing).

The best way to find subtitled variety and talk shows is not with a simple search. Since YouTube has gotten faster at suspending copyrighted material, fansubbers have had to become more elusive with their video titles; a search will often not bring up what you’re looking for. Instead, get to know the subtitling teams. Appearances by idol groups or popular actors will be subtitled without fail – just find the corresponding fan teams.

If you know the date of airing, all the better. Simply search with the date format “YYMMDD”. For example January 8th, 2009, you would search “090108”. You’ll be sure to come up with something that way 🙂

“Winter Sonata; The Animation” should be released sometime early next year. The original lead actors, Bae Yong Jun (recent winner of the Culture Medal) and Choi Ji Woo, will be rivive their old characters and voice them once again for their avid Japanese fans.

The trailer:

Do not underestimate the power of the Sonata. Since it’s airing in 2002, half of Asia has been wild for this drama and it has become a leader in “Hallyu” or the ” Korean Wave.” Japanese fans have dubbed two lead actors “Yon-sama” and “Jiwoo-hime” _ high terms of respect in Japanese. There has already been a Musical version of the drama, which was a hit in both Korea and Japan.

It has a soft place in my heart for me, too: it was the first Korean drama – in fact, the first Asian tv show – that I ever saw. And I cried my little eye balls out.

On October 8th, the CEO of Culture Cap Media announced its intention to adapt the classic tv show to film. Although casting is yet unconfirmed, the two original actors Bae Yong Jun and Choi Ji Woo will not be participating in the film.

The company stated that “We are hoping to give a refreshing new feel to the movie.”

After “Winter Sonata,” there are also plans to adapt “Autumn in My Heart,” another Korean Hallyu classic. (And by classic, I mean 2000… It’s a relatively new phenomenon…)

For the last year or so, I’ve become really interested in Korean pop culture and I’ve found the internet to be my primary – almost exclusive – source of this.

Browsing around, I’ve actually discovered an online community of non-Koreans just as facinated with Korean pop culture as I am.

Soompi is a great sourse for eveything Korean: news, music charts, fan clubs, blogs, forums – they got it all. It could be called the “hub” of the non-Korean community onlince. Highly recommended.

One of my personal favorites.

Alvin Lim “Coolsmurf” is the author of blog Coolsmurf Domain. He posts all sorts of entertainment news, drama reviews, episode summaries, etc. He used to have a fabulous YouTube account too, but it was suspended >.< Many people were upset when Coolsmurf when it happened. They even got a petition going! His current YouTube account doesn’t have quite as much – he’s being more careful now. But there’s a still a lot of great stuff on there.

Coolsmurf was especially well known for subbing clips of the “X-man” variety show. Fortunately for us, a fan of his got permission to re-up his X-man videos on YouTube. See them on yupitsback‘s channel.

K-popped! is a quality site maintained by three girls “passionate about korean pop culture.” They’re pretty straight forward: “We’re Malaysian. We’re hooked on all things Korean. We blog here.”

POPSEOUL! is another good blog about Korean entertainment run by several authors. It’s as current as you can get and covers a pretty wide range. They’ve got spunk and attitude, but POPSEOUL! can get a little catty sometimes, and that gets on my nerves…

Dramabeans (also called Javabeans) is another quality blog primarily about Korean dramas, but is a great source for news and interesting discussion. I like this one because it’s not just about the newest celebrity gossip. The author “deconstructs” korean culture – for instance, discussing the phenomenon of the uljjang or modern takes on the traditional Korean hanbok.

Though gomdori has been a part the online non-Korean community for some time, her blog is still pretty new. She’s been subbing for some time – many of her YouTube accounts have been shut down for copyright infringement. Her current YouTube has loads of subbed videos (especially tv shows featuring Super Junior and DBSK… Okay, so I’m biased.) This blog has all of her new subbed products.

gomdori also has another blog – ever newer – which is called gomdori’s everyday news. She selects articles that are interesting or important, translates them and posts them.

Muish is quite the veteran of the online non-Korean community, as well. She’s had multiple YouTube accounts, all suspended. Many people have re-uploaded her videos and you can find them scattered across YouTube. Her current YouTube account is called muishiessi. It’s sort of small at the moment, but I’m sure it will grow larger. I really like the things she chooses to sub – she has good taste.

muish also has a new WordPress blog – Muish’s Ramblings – where she shares how to make subtitles, among other things.

Where to watch Korean dramas:

YouTube always works, of course, but there are some really great sites that cater to drama-lovers in particular.

MySoju is a site made by drama watchers, for drama watchers. They have a long list of dramas, with a link to an outside hosting site for each episode. The nice part about this is, MySoju never gets in trouble for having videos up illegally. The bad part is the links are liable to be broken every once in a while, which can be VERY irritating if you’re in the middle of a drama. But mostly MySoju is pretty good about keeping the links up to date.

Their selection is very wide – loads of Korean, Japanese, and Taiwanese dramas & movies. The list grows every week. There is even a new section for Hong Kong and Mainland (Chinese) dramas.

Crunchyroll is a fun site for fans of any Asian media. Unlike MySoju, which started as a Korean drama site, Crunchyroll has EVERYTHING. And, as opposed to MySoju, Crunchyroll actually hosts its own videos. The down side of this is, Crunchyroll is compliant with copyright laws – series are liable to be licensed and removed at any moment. Despite this, Crunchyroll is one of the bests sources for Asian entertainment.